Business IT Articles

Websites: Realising The Business Benefit

Your business might already be moving along quite nicely from a day to day point of view and you're happy that sales have reached a level that you're satisfied with. However, for profit maximising businesses this can be a dangerous rut to fall into, but one that can easily be avoided.

From a profit point of view, sales can be quite misleading. Yes, you know the breakeven point and you know you're not going to make a loss if you sell more than 1,000 units per month ... but what are you selling, how are you selling it and who are you selling it to?

The questions of what, how and who are key to ensuring that you maximise the value in each product or service that you offer; you may well find that the value (that is the price that the customer is willing to pay) differs depending upon geographic location, demographic, urgency etc.

Take an example of a van hire service that offers a van for £50 per day. To get that price you must book at least 4 days in advance. If you want it sooner you pay £70 per day. The reason is that while what you are obtaining hasn't changed, the who you're selling to is now different; the customer has an urgency which translates into a higher value to them. The van still costs you the same, no matter when it's booked! You will have noticed an increase in profit for no extra cost; Sounds good, eh?

What we're talking about here is market segmentation and while you might think this involves a sales team and a sophisticated marketing approach, all you need is a properly planned website that responds to people's website searches. With each page of your website tailored to a specifically identified market segment you can describe your product in the best way that it identifies its value to the client and can charge accordingly. Same product, different price.

Setting up a website that explores this concept can be a real boost to your profit line while maintaining sales and effort at current levels. The steps that you need to follow are, in summary:

1. Identify your products and services

Seems like a no-brainer but it's very important you provide an exhaustive list of products and services that you provide (or can broker);

2. Identify your target market

Don't say anyone or don't know ... you really need to ensure you can describe your ideal customer (that is, the one that will give you the most profit). Choose a few target markets, say 6 although you can have more.

3. Write content

Write some description or identify the features that each of the target market groups is looking for in your product. Mix this with any custom features you can add to your product or service if possible.

4. Integrate with your website

Whether you do this step yourself or pass it to a website developer is up to you but now we create a website that provides a page for each of those target market and product types. This can either be a dynamic website or a static one depending upon how many products and target markets that you have.

5. Finally, optimise your website

Next get as much traffic to your website as possible using search engine optimisation techniques. Again, if you're not familiar with this then contact an expert who will be able to help.

The bottom line is to realise the value of the consultancy, development and optimisation services that you are undertaking (whether or not you do them yourself). As a key part of your marketing strategy and when you do it correctly you will find significant returns on investment.

Good luck with your business!

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